Mindblowing. This is what authoritarian states do. Free speech is going away in front of our eyes.
Homeland Security is targeting Americans with this secretive legal weapon
In October, a retiree emailed a DHS attorney to urge mercy for an asylum seeker. Then DHS subpoenaed his Google account and sent investigators to his home.
e had decided that the America he believed in would not make it if people like him didn’t speak up, so on a cool, rainy morning in the suburbs of Philadelphia, Jon, 67 and recently retired, marched up to his study and began to type.
He had just read about the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s
case against an Afghan it was trying to deport. The immigrant, identified in The Washington Post’s Oct. 30 investigation as H, had begged federal officials to reconsider, telling them the Taliban would kill him if he was returned to Afghanistan.
“Unconscionable,” Jon thought as he found an email address online for the lead prosecutor, Joseph Dernbach, who was named in the story. Peering through metal-rimmed glasses, Jon opened Gmail on his computer monitor.
“Mr. Dernbach, don’t play Russian roulette with H’s life,” he wrote. “Err on the side of caution. There’s a reason the US government along with many other governments don’t recognise the Taliban. Apply principles of common sense and decency.”
That was it. In five minutes, Jon said, he finished the note, signed his first and last name, pressed send and hoped his plea would make a difference.
Five hours and one minute later, Jon was watching TV with his wife when an email popped up in his inbox. He noticed it on his phone.
“Google,” the message read, “has received legal process from a Law Enforcement authority compelling the release of information related to your Google Account.”
Listed below was the type of legal process: “subpoena.” And below that, the authority: “Department of Homeland Security.”
That’s how it began. Soon would come a knock at the door by men with badges and, for Jon, the relentless feeling of being surveilled in a country where he never imagined he would be.
Google hadn’t provided him a copy of the subpoena, but it wasn’t the conventional sort. Homeland Security had come after him with what’s known as an administrative subpoena, a powerful legal tool that, unlike the ones people are most familiar with, federal agencies can issue without an order from a judge or grand jury.
